Vietnam Blues: Veterans Still Pained By War Experience...It Was A Dark, Bloody Time For America...Good Soldiering, Bad Soldiering...

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
Editor-In-Chief

McALLEN, Texas - It is the one war America cannot forget, even though it really wasn't a war and it really wasn't the worst ever fought by soldiers of this country. Officially, Vietnam was a "conflict," not a declared war, as was, say, World War II. Yet, in song and movie, the Vietnam adventure hangs over Americans like a bad case of regret that feels like the worst kind of gaping wounds.

They revered the brave men and women who served the military in the Southeast Asia country here yesterday. It was, by all accounts, a salving gathering. Tears flowed and hugs circled the crowd, according to a story in The McAllen Monitor. Everyone said the right things about serving their flag and being proud of it, and about how grateful the nation should've been. It wasn't, not then.

The 1960s and 1970s were a noisy, rebellious pair of decades that came with the Vietnam action and massive protests in this country that some say eventually led to the decision by the American government to leave Vietnam after tremendous loss of life and pride.

Vets in McAllen focused on the return, one they say never was adequate for the lives lost in combat and the horrible treatment some vets received upon returning. That happened.

But so did some other things no one mentioned in McAllen.

Those days were full of angst and anger. Protests spanned the country, from Boston to San Diego. Hardened vets would like to label them Hippies and draft dodgers, but not all were from those camps. Yes, the longhairs fought then-President Richard Nixon in the streets and in the hell-raising alternative newspapers (remember The Berkeley Barb?). Demonstrations outside the main gates at military bases and posts were common. Jane Fonda often spoke at these protests, as did psychedelic guru Timmy Leary and the infamous Abbie Hoffman. It was a great show of democracy, only the men in uniform rarely agreed with the protesters and their methods.

Still, there were two important incidents that also were part of the times.

In My Lai and My Khe, combat-weary Army soldiers massacred as many as 350 unarmed Vietnamese, mostly women and children, during raids on both villages in March of 1968. Only one soldier was tried and convicted, and that was Army Lt. William Calley, who was sentenced to life in prison, but was released after 3 years. Yes, that year was particularly awful for the war effort, but it happened, and that, too, is the legacy of Vietnam.

In this country, it would be May 4, 1970 that would stain the military.

Four students were killed that day and nine injured when members of the Ohio National Guard fired on students protesting the war at Kent State University. According to news reports of the times, the soldiers fired 67 rounds in 13 seconds. One student survived, but was paralyzed for life.

Absolutely, the men and women who served the military during that war should be remembered and honored, as happened here yesterday in what was labeled LZ: RGV (Landing Zone: Rio Grande Valley). We should take such sympathetic liberties with the people who march to the frontlines and battlefields. We should lap on them the praise they need and deserve. That's the mark of a civilized society, as weird as it sounds when talking about war veterans.

But history records everything, warts and all.

And, tough as it may be for gung-ho vets to stomach, Vietnam was not World War II. It was more closely associated with other undeclared entanglements, such as Korea, Granada, Panama, Desert Storm and the War in Iraq. No great welcome awaited the men who served and fought in those conflicts, either.

Vietnam veterans are correct in feeling slighted.

They're just not the only ones...

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